Senseless
by KatsushigaHoshibi
Summary: Falling into a dark night of the soul, Ritsuka faces dangerous adult situations as he reaps what he sows from the stories 'Earless' and 'Trustless.' During all of this, a shadow from the past comes back with a vengence, threatening to ruin everything.


Senseless

A Loveless Fanfiction

Katsushiga Hoshibi

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Author's Note: This story follows the plot of Earless and Trustless. If you don't read those pieces first, then this story probably won't make any sense. Enjoy.

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Slowly sliding the classroom door open, I saw Yuiko sitting at her desk next to the window. Her gaze was far off as she held a hand absent-mindedly over her stomach. I didn't give it much thought as I walked slowly over to her. It had been two months since we started officially dating. I guess for the average sixth grader, it was pretty impressive. Almost as impressive as how Soubi was dating Shinonome-sensei.

Putting that aside, I wondered what Yuiko wanted to talk to me about. It seemed strange that she'd call me in to talk after everyone else had left for the day. Wouldn't it have made more sense to just go to her home? Her parents were never there, so I didn't know why she had to be all mysterious about it.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Standing practically in front of her, Yuiko didn't even turn her head to answer me.

"I wonder if you're not going to want to be with me anymore," she said softly. I felt myself become a little angry at her large bowl of stupid.

"What are you saying? Why wouldn't I want to be with-" I tried to spout out before she turned angry eyes filled with tears on me.

"I'm pregnant! Yuiko is pregnant!"

At that loud burst, I stumbled slightly as my eyes went wide. It was all too much like a bad drama for my tastes. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. Instead of trying to say something to make it not true, I ended up staring at her stomach. To no surprise, Yuiko had dissolved into tears at that point.

"How… how do you know for sure?" I swallowed a little. We were young. Maybe Yuiko wasn't ovulating yet. Even though her breasts were huge, maybe she wasn't fully mature. Thoughts such as those filled my heart with hope.

"Yuiko took a home test kit and it was positive," she said in between sniffs. I didn't even bother reacting to her third person way of speech. I was worried that badly. "It said that Yuiko was pregnant, and Yuiko hasn't had her period in over a month!"

In that moment, I was torn and my hopes were shattered. I loved Yuiko, but I knew I wasn't ready to have a child. Gauging from how Yuiko was acting, I could only guess that she wasn't ready, either. Deep down inside, I didn't think she would ever be ready to have children.

"Yuiko doesn't know what to do," she cried as she leapt out of her seat and latched herself around me, sobbing into my chest. I merely stood there stroking her hair, still not used to the lack of the ever so symbolic cat ears.

As she continued to grapple me in a grip that would have put a Siberian bear to shame, I thought about the day we lost our ears. Well, not so much the day as the morning after. That was a mess.

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"Eh? Eh?! Ritsuka, Ritsuka, wake up!"

As I was shaken awake, I groggily looked up at Yuiko's cute face. Even her pajamas were cute, pink with white rabbits. Something seemed out of place despite all the cuteness. Her hair was really messy. Was I missing something else? Was it something actually important? I must have been if there were tears in Yuiko's eyes.

"They fell off!"

I blinked. "What fell off?" Was she missing some jewelry? That didn't make any sense. I don't remember her wearing anything after we were naked together besides the cute pajamas she put on afterwards. Maybe it was her earring. She was always wearing so many of those.

"Yuiko's ears fell off," she said in an adorable voice with watery eyes. I would have laughed if she didn't hold up her cat ears.

That tore the smile from my face and stomped on it like so many shattered dreams. Damn it. Why did it have to be so painfully obvious when someone lost their virginity? It didn't even make any scientific sense. What sort of creature would develop random body parts that would just fall off after having intercourse?

Feeling around, I stumbled upon my own discarded ears. Maybe it was just because I woke up and still out of it, but I was kind of glad they were gone. They were annoying to wash in the morning. Holding one of my cat ears above my head as I lay flat on my back, I didn't understand the urgency in Yuiko's voice. It all seemed very surreal to me.

"Doesn't Ritsuka understand? Both Ritsuka and Yuiko are in a lot of trouble," she whined. Yuiko was talking in that annoying third person kind of way again. I really wish she wouldn't do that.

Another moment passed. She just stared at me while I flipped the soft ear over in my fingers. Then it dawned on me. Without our ears, we were in so much trouble. We were only junior high students. This situation would cause nothing but trouble.

Jolting up, I gathered my ears and tail together. I knew that we needed to get rid of them before someone saw us lying together in her bed without any hint of our purity left. I wondered if I could just throw them away in a normal trashcan.

I wish I could think of where to get replacement ears. I remember one of the Zero girls having a pair. There was no way that I could find a place that could supply me with fake ones. As far as I knew, you'd have to have yakuza connections to get them. They weren't exactly illegal, but some well to do's had an issue with perverted morality.

"Ah! I know what to do," I announced confidently.

Yuiko stared at me as though I had grown another head. Not surprising. From her standpoint, the world might as well have been exploding. It seemed unlikely that I would have the magical answer to solve all of our problems.

"I'll just call Soubi, he'll know what to do," I said as I set to work digging through my pants for my cell phone. Yuiko's eyes just watered up more.

"Soubi-san?! But, but, but!" I looked at her. "I don't want him to know! My life is ruined," she cried. I was starting to have one of those days that I needed to remind myself that it is never okay to throw a brick at Yuiko.

"It'll be fine. Soubi won't think badly of you. He'll help us out," I tried to reassure her as I dialed Soubi. In my thoughts, I commented that it was more along the lines of that he won't think any worse of you.

The phone rang three times before he picked up. I almost panicked in that time. In his cold, almost mythical voice, Soubi asked if I missed him. Another annoyance to start off my day wrong.

"Soubi! I don't have time for that. Do you know where I can find fake ears?" I think I heard him choke on the other end of the line. Several moments of silence passed by. "Soubi! Hey! Are you there, Soubi?!"

"Where are you?" he asked finally.

"I'm at Yui-" I tried to finish before he cut me off.

"I'll be there in ten minutes." Then he hung up.

Sighing, I looked over at the wreck of a girlfriend that I seemed to have. She was staring at our ears in her hands, still crying. Then I did something that even surprised me. I smiled.

"We'll make everything okay, Yuiko. Just you see. Um, we should probably throw those away, though."

Yuiko looked up with angry eyes and shouted, "No! We can't… they're Yuiko and Ritsuka's innocence. Yuiko wants to keep them."

The image of a brick hitting her square in the face flashed through my mind. No, I knew that it wasn't a good thing to be thinking. I think I even loved Yuiko, even if I did keep having recurring thoughts about hitting her with bricks.

I took in a deep breath. "They'll start to rot and stink and then you'll have a lot larger problems then someone realizing that you have fake ears."

That was the start of a conversation that took the better part of an hour to resolve. I was fortunate that Soubi showed up a little late, with a package containing our fake cat pieces, so he didn't see our fight. It was more so a really bad argument, but I would've been embarrassed to have anyone witness the event.

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After two months of dating had passed by, the thought of hitting her with a brick started coming less and less often to my mind. By this point, I had found more creative ways to occupy her mouth in order to keep her from saying a whole lot of stupid. I wish that it hadn't been Soubi who had suggested how to do that.

Stroking Yuiko's hair, I started to wonder why she wasn't wearing her ears. I knew that a few of the girls in the class had been spreading rumors about Yuiko taking off her ears when she changed for gym, but I just thought they were being stupid. Then again, Yuiko did have a habit of never answering me when I asked her about that rumor. I really hoped that she wouldn't actually be that stupid, but I could never tell with her sometimes.

Then I realized that she must be that stupid as I heard the classroom door slide open behind us. I turned slowly with my pupils contracting as I felt like a deer in the headlights. Standing there, seeing Yuiko crying into my chest without her fake ears was Shinonome-sensei.

"I think we should all go somewhere to have a talk," she commanded as Soubi stepped up behind her. The day just got a whole lot worse. Maybe I'd be lucky enough to wake up and have everything be a really, really, really bad dream.

Yuiko stood up and rushed over to her, leaving me standing alone on the other side of the room. "Shinonome-sensei," she cried as she clung to our homeroom teacher. I just hoped that no one else was seeing this.

Soubi casually walked over, glaring coldly down at me through his glasses, before helping himself to the contents of Yuiko's bag. Pulling out the two fake ears, he walked over to the two girls. In his best fake smile, he lowered himself to Yuiko's level.

"It wouldn't do to have people see you like this," he said in kindly phrased words that I only could imagine was dripping in his hatred of her taking my purity. After he flashed another dangerous look at me, Soubi stepped into the hallway. Why was the entire world set against me today?

"Aoyagi-kun, Hawatari-san, we're going to go to my apartment, and you won't tell anyone that you were there," Shinonome-sensei said in a crisp voice that had me on edge. The world was out to get me today.

Subconsciously, I adjusted my ears. As long as we didn't run into Yayoi or Kio, then at least the day couldn't get any worse. I wasn't more wrong.

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After we had walked the entire way to Shinonome-sensei's house in almost perfect single file, we slowly paced our way straight into her living room. On one couch, Yuiko and I sat next to each other, but not touching. On the opposite couch sat Soubi while Shinonome-sensei made tea. After she set down the tea, Shinonome-sensei exhaled a held breath and did something that surprised me.

She slapped me across the face.

My face stung from where her open palm had smacked me. I slowly raised my eyes to meet hers, which was filled with the strict discipline that one would come to expect from a teacher. On the one hand, I was glad to be off from school grounds, from where other people could see this wretched scene. On the other, I was terrified with what this surrounding could mean if the conversation started off with getting slapped.

"Soubi, would you like to start?" Shinonome-sensei sat very close to Soubi. Part of me still wasn't used to them dating yet. This kind of made me think of what it would be like to have a normal mother and father. Too bad this situation was a lot worse than simply being caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

"You can't be careless, Ritsuka," Soubi started in as he pulled out a cigarette. Shinonome-sensei snatched it away without even looking. Maybe she's gotten a lot of practice with doing that. She was just as hard with him smoking as I was, although I guess she was a lot more affective. "Yuiko being pregnant is a huge responsibility and you're both extremely young. This is the reason why I was strictly against you losing your ears for at least several years."

Putting the cigarette away in a drawer in the coffee table, where I could only imagine dozens of others must be, Shinonome-sensei turned her glare on me. "What could you have been thinking? You're both still children. You're not ready for this sort of responsibility."

"Shinonome-sensei," I tried to plead. I was cut off.

"Just call me Hitomi, we don't need to be formal in my living room," she sighed. Hitomi was often chided as a late bloomer by other adults, but it felt like her mood today was nothing but mature. "More importantly, we need to think of what you two are going to do in the future. Give it another couple of months and it will really start to show on Yuiko. Then fake ears or no fake ears, your secret is going to be exposed."

Glancing over to Yuiko, I could see her tremble. She was so petite that Hitomi was very, very right. Being pregnant would make her fill up like a balloon. There was no way that we could hide that, and I definitely didn't want that for Yuiko. She was teased relentlessly at school for stupid things. I didn't want to see her tormented for anything this serious.

"There's always abortion," Soubi coldly commented. I could have cut the awkward silence that followed with a knife. A few moments passed and Yuiko was sobbing and clutching my shirt as though it was the only piece of dry land in an ocean of tears.

Hitomi just glared at him. "If it wouldn't give you so much pleasure, I would hit you, Agatsuma Soubi." It only earned her a smile from that masochist.

"I-I don't want to kill her! Please don't make me kill her, Ritsuka!" Amongst her pleas, I was more amazed that Yuiko had already decided its gender.

I did the only thing I could do. I bent over and kissed the top of her head. "Yuiko… I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to," I said as I glared at Soubi. Today, I wanted to throw the brick at him.

Moments passed without so much as a word. I think Hitomi just made the tea to give a cheap appearance of being a good hostess, although I'm more than sure none of us wanted anything to drink. The mood wasn't set for polite conversation, and if everyone's stomach was the same as my own, then all four of our insides were tied up in knots.

If it was any other subject, I'm sure it would've been very comical watching Soubi reach for the cigarette drawer as Hitomi simply slapped his hand away without so much as looking at him. If she hadn't had a lot of practice with this by now, it wouldn't have shown. I started wondering exactly how close those two were now.

"Yuiko," Hitomi started as she reached across the table to touch her on the shoulder. "Do you want to keep the baby?" Yuiko nodded yes. "Do you know that it's going to be a lot of responsibility and hard work?" Yuiko nodded yes. This prompted Hitomi to look at Soubi with sad eyes.

"Abortion aside, there is another option. If we do decide on this, I want the both of you to be very serious about it," Soubi coolly stated as he picked up his tea. How could he relax at a time like this? "My grandfather runs a Shinto shrine up in Hokkaido. With the connections Hitomi and I have, we could all go up there for a year and nobody would even think twice about Hitomi coming back with twins."

This awkward silence was even worse than the first one. Hitomi was staring intently at the ground, hiding her eyes with her bangs as her cheeks flushed red. Yuiko brushed the tears out of her eyes and looked at Hitomi was eyes of confusion. I stared at Soubi, not sure what to say.

"Hitomi is also pregnant, by the way," Soubi said all so matter of factly.

Given the time frame, it was possible that Yuiko and Hitomi had gotten pregnant at the same time. It was only a few days after I lost my ears that I told Soubi to go out on a date with her. Of course, I had done adult acts with Yuiko a lot in the past two months, never with any protection. I never really learned about sex education and I wasn't even sure where I could buy condoms without getting in trouble.

"But… Soubi, aren't you..?" I was confused. Didn't Soubi like guys? Adults made absolutely no sense to me.

"Ritsuka, it was you that ordered me out on a date with her in the first place," he smiled. There were never any bricks around when I needed one.

"It's… okay, Soubi. We need to think of our best options." Hitomi sighed again. "Look. Ritsuka, your mother is unstable and taking you away is in your best interests for many, many reasons. Yuiko, I'm putting a lot on the line to help you. Getting fired for this is the least of my concerns right now, so both of us need to be strong," she continued. I don't think I've ever seen her this resolute. Must be the stress of the situation getting to her.

I think maybe a couple of hours passed as we talked the situation through. Apparently Soubi and Hitomi had known about Yuiko's problem for a little while now. Hitomi actually had caught Yuiko's morning sickness a few times first thing before class started. Apparently, I was the only one coming late to the game with all of this. Hitomi and Soubi have been working out most of the hard details for the better part of a week now. I was a little taken aback by how well they had planned everything out.

Fortunately, the plan was simple. As part of a cultural enrichment and alternate education plan, Yuiko and I would be sent to study under Agatsuma Keiichi at the Tamamo-no-mae shrine in Hokkaido. By some stroke of luck, he even was certified as a teacher, although I didn't understand how a certificate since before the Great War was still applicable nowadays. At the same time, Hitomi would file for maternity leave and take off for Hokkaido. I had no idea how Soubi was getting out of his college work, but it somehow involved Kio and I never liked any plan that started with that.

The tricky part would be convincing my mother to let me go. That wasn't actually true as I'd just sneak out and head north, letting my father know where I was going. He was useless, but at least he could cover my tracks just enough to make the plan work. I had no idea how Yuiko was planning on convincing her parents, but she was pretty confident. If nothing else, I couldn't believe what I was getting myself into.

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With four days left until our departure, I found myself sitting on Soubi's bed as he sorted through some random stuff he was planning on bringing with him. In the past couple of weeks, everything had gone too smoothly. All the paper work was filed like clockwork, as we found no resistance to our plans.

That wasn't exactly true for Hitomi-sensei. There was a bit more resistance for her, as she wasn't actually married to Soubi. To think that we live in modern Japan is a pitiful joke. For Hitomi-sensei to be able to get to the northern island, she would have to marry Soubi at the shrine. I didn't understand how this could be seen as a modern way of thinking.

"Soubi, are you really going to marry her?" He froze to the spot and became a statue. After moments of silence passed, he went back to sorting through items. "Hey, Soubi, I asked you a question."

"Ritsuka, you are allowed to order me to do whatever you wish me to."

I blinked. "What does that have to do with the situation here?"

"Some orders have consequences down the road that have to be understood," Soubi explained as he filled a duffel bag with a few toiletries. "When you ordered me to date Hitomi, there were a few things that would have definitely happened. After awhile, sex was inevitable."

"But you didn't have to get her pregnant," I muttered as I stared off to the side.

"Most people are smart enough to be on birth control, even if they aren't actively having sex," Soubi frowned as he folded up a couple of shirts. "So getting married is out of necessity right now."

I glared at him, clenching my hands in tight fists. "Don't you love her?" I think that took him by surprise.

"Are you ordering me to love her," he smiled at me. What I would give to have a brick at the moment…

"I want you to love her only if you can mean it!"

Soubi smiled again. "Then I love Hitomi."

"Don't make your mind that easily, Soubi!" Adults confused me. I guess I was an adult now, too, but I still didn't understand him. Part of me knew that I never would.

Despite my pleas, Soubi kept packing as though nothing was wrong. Besides the bare necessities, Soubi packed a lot of painting supplies. I heard that his grandfather really liked artwork, so it made some sense to me.

"Do you love Yuiko?"

I hesitated. The question caught me completely off guard. "I… I do."

"You shouldn't put yourself through this trouble if you don't love her. I like Yuiko, but I don't think that she's going to be very emotionally stable after this," Soubi commented. I glared at him, wishing I had that brick. "You're also putting her in danger."

I hesitated again. Even though we hadn't fought anyone in awhile and Septimal Moon had been very relaxed in trying to collect us, I knew better than to lower my guard. The male Zero team had agreed to run interference for us after they moved out, but I didn't exactly trust them, either. Septimal Moon would be after us again; we just didn't know when.

"I never thought of that," I said as Soubi sighed. I wondered if he was thinking of hitting me with a brick.

Zipping up his bag, Soubi came over and sat next to me. Lighting a cigarette, he inhaled it deeply. I watched the flame at the end burn away at the white wrapping. Soubi tapped it against an ashtray before he even looked at me again.

"We need to both act more like adults," he started. "We can't change the fact that Yuiko and Hitomi are pregnant, so we need to be more mature about all of this. At least you and Yuiko get out easy. The two of you won't be waking up at two in the morning to tend to the children."

Soubi's glare disturbed me. He was actually mad at me, something I wasn't used to. I really, really wish that I had actually been thinking with my head for the last couple of months. If I weren't so stupid, I wouldn't have gotten myself into this mess in the first place.

"Remember, the Zeroes attacked Hitomi when we weren't even that close to her," he chided as my eyes grew wide. I hadn't thought of that. "How much more will fighters do now that we are actually involved in relationships?"

Swinging my feet a little, I thought about it. Soubi was right; I needed to act more like an adult. There was only one thing I could do, given the situation.

"We'll protect them," I announced, throwing Soubi off guard. He almost dropped his cigarette. "If they come after Yuiko and Hitomi-sensei, then we'll stop them."

There wasn't anything more innocent that I could've said just then.

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In the past few months, I never realized how annoying making certain memories could be. Maybe it's because I'm a guy, but shopping with Yuiko was always tiring, especially when she made me carry the bags. I don't even know why she needed half of the stuff she bought that day. Part of me wondered if she even realized that we were going to be gone for a full year and a semester, so we'd be in eighth grade coming back. I wondered if Yuiko ever used common sense.

"Ritsuka! I'm really looking forward to our trip," Yuiko smiled at me. "It's going to be like a honeymoon."

I sighed, a little in annoyance at her constant energy. "I'm sure if you really meant it, Soubi's granddad could marry us right after he marries Soubi and Hitomi-sensei."

I think I deserved the brick again as Yuiko's eyes sparkled. The last thing we needed was for her to get some crazy idea in her head.

"Do you really mean it?! Yes! Yuiko wants to marry Ritsuka!" She danced around, swirling about to only gather us more attention. I could already hear the people gossiping about what Yuiko just announced.

"Forget about that for now, let's just get out of here," I said as I shuffled the bags around, pulling her away from the scene.

Finding a quiet cafe, we sat down to have a cup of tea. I thought I always hated Tokyo, but now I found myself missing it already. Hokkaido was always the place I felt I was best suited to be, around nature day in and day out. The city just had a certain charm that I knew I would come to miss.

"Ritsuka, I heard that Hokkaido has pineapples," Yuiko said, completely changing topic from the embarrassment she had put me through in the shopping arcade.

I could only blink. "Where did you hear that?" There was no way that pineapples could grow there. Hokkaido was a humid continental climate, far removed from the subtropical environment that such fruit grew in.

"I saw it in an anime," Yuiko explained in between bites of cake. Since she never put on any weight eating all of those sweets, I wondered if she was going to still be so petite after a few more months of carrying our baby. "You know, it was the one with the martial artist who always gets lost and turns into a pig when splashed with cold water. He sends souvenirs to the girl he likes when he travels around, and one time he sent pineapples from Hokkaido."

It sounded creepy. I just nodded and pretended to understand. Yuiko still didn't acknowledge that I didn't enjoy watching anime. On the rare occasion, I would find a manga that wouldn't be that bad. For the most part, my preference in entertainment came from reading books.

"Do you think that living at a shrine is going to be like in anime?"

"No, Yuiko, I don't," I responded.

"You should call me sometime and ask for me to be your girlfriend forever," Yuiko winked as I nearly did a spit take. "You are short, after all."

"Wh-what are you talking about? Of course you're going to be my girlfriend forever, you're carrying my-" She cut me off.

"I was just kidding, you don't have to be so mean," she teased.

At this point in our lives, I knew I loved Yuiko. I didn't care what problems would come our way; I would do anything to see her smile. There wasn't anything that could ever change that.

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The morning we were scheduled to leave finally arrived. Throwing a few last things into my bag, I smiled. The silver lining to this dark, dull cloud had finally arrived. Little did I know at the time that there was an even bigger rain cloud on the horizon.

It didn't take long for that rain cloud to arrive, in two meanings of the word. As I was jogging off to meet Soubi at his apartment, it had started to pour. I wasn't overly concerned, but it was heavily inconvenient. In particular, I was worried about my camera getting wet. I wanted to make as many memories as possible with my new family.

My phone rang. Stopping to fish it out of my pocket, I saw Yuiko's familiar name and number. There shouldn't be anything important to call me about. I thought that maybe she was just wondering when I'd be at the train station. Pushing the accept call button, I held it up to my ear.

"Ri-ritsuka…" Yuiko's voice sounded strained. Then I heard the phone clatter to the ground.

"Oh, Ritsuka, you can't have children," an all too familiar voice announced from the other side of the phone. "I think the cat's gotten into your goldfish bowl again." The dial tone as he hung up brought me back to reality.

"Sei… mei…"

My heart exploded as I sprinted the rest of the way to Soubi's. This had to be some sick, twisted attack by Septimal Moon. There was no way that Seimei could have been alive. I don't think my feet touched the ground before I was pounding with all my might on Soubi's door.

"We need to go! We need to go!"

Soubi opened the door slowly with a lit cigarette in his mouth. He didn't know what was going on. I was the only one that knew. My heart was pounding so loud that my ears hurt.

"Soubi! They have her! We need to go," I screamed, throwing my bag into his apartment and pulled at him to come with me.

Right then, Soubi's phone rang. Pushing me away enough to drag it out, he put the receiver to his ear. A moment later, his face grew chalk white as the cigarette fell from his lips.

"Where are you?" Soubi was shaking now. I've never seen him this spooked before. "I said, where are you?" His voice growled and sent chills down my spine.

Soubi had barely closed his phone when he grabbed my hand and pulled me after him. We sprinted down the roads, taking various alleyways that I've never seen in my life. If it was Seimei, then I could understand why Soubi was as spooked as I was. He was supposed to be dead.

Ultimately, it made sense that we didn't utter a word along the way. To speak would have just slowed us down. We didn't have that luxury. I didn't want to know what was happening to Yuiko. I couldn't bare any of the thoughts going through my head.

Standing outside of an old warehouse, I nervously shook. Soubi lit a cigarette and loosened himself up. Ever fiber of his being was preparing itself for what was inside. Grabbing his pack, I lit a cigarette for myself. That probably surprised him, but we didn't have time to talk about it.

The filter tasted awful and the smoke burnt my lungs. Grimly smiling to myself, I thought that Yuiko and Hitomi wouldn't be happy with either of our breaths. Mimicking the man who was more of an older brother than the one I feared was inside, I shook myself out. We were going to save them.

Walking with confidence and an inner strength that came from who knows where, we pulled open the large steel doors. The dim light filtered through the torrential rains didn't break the inner darkness of the warehouse. Gathering our composure, Soubi walked in with me quickly taking his flank.

With a slam, the doors cut off our escape route. Flickering to life, two lights showed us the scene that we were afraid of. I was proud that I didn't vomit. I don't know how I managed not to.

Yuiko was chained to the floor. Her eyes stared at the ground as she shook, silently crying. Her shirt had been crudely ripped apart by some sharp instrument and several dark red bloodstains ran down her stomach and her thighs. I've read that stomach wounds are the most painful in the world. I would have rushed over if I didn't notice the other light.

Hitomi was in even worse shape. As with Yuiko, her shirt had been torn apart and the blood was still fresh on her abdomen. The wounds were still obviously open as she was hanging from a massive meat hook suspended in the rafters. What I also noticed on Hitomi was that some of the blood was coming out from under her badly torn skirt as well.

My eyes widened as Soubi pushed me quickly out of the way. A second later, a large meat hook replaced my spot as it swung from the rafters. It was evident that someone was trying to kill us by this point, but they didn't show themselves yet.

The laugh I heard next would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. As more of the dim overhead lamps sprung to life, Seimei walked toward us, laughing like a madman. My heart broke again. He was alive and trying to kill the woman I loved.

"Oh, little Ritsuka, I see you brought your little toy with you. Shall I break him, too?" Seimei laughed.

"Seimei! What are you doing?!" I screamed at my brother. I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to hurt for what he was doing to my Yuiko.

He grinned like a Cheshire. "I'm not doing any of this, Ritsuka. You are. This is all your doing, little brother. It's all your fault."

I rushed at him, but Soubi held out a hand to stop me. Glaring up at him, I wanted to kill Soubi as well as Seimei. Didn't he understand that he was getting in my way? My mind didn't understand that he was attempting to protect me, as a fighter should do for their sacrifice.

"Are you going to fight auto?" Soubi tore the cigarette out of his mouth and stomped on it. I don't remember dropping mine, nor did I care to look to see where it fell.

"A sacrifice always has a fighter," Seimei announced as he snapped his fingers. An earless Yayoi stepped out, his eyes glazed over. There was something very wrong with all of this.

"Yayoi, why are you here?" I shouted, pointing my finger at him. Why had Seimei brought him here?

Laughing again, Seimei addressed me. "Isn't this quite the stage, little Ritsuka? Poor Ophelia's fallen into a well of her own blood as Hamlet stands boldly against Laertes, all the while being protected by the proud ghost of his father. Yet here I stand as the King of Denmark with my queen hung from the rafters for all the world to see!"

"You're mad, Seimei!" Tears were streaming down my eyes.

"Mad? We're all mad here, I'm mad, you're mad," he laughed. "Now let me show you the true meaning of the name 'Beloved.'" Seimei took out a blood-covered knife and cut a line into Yayoi's neck. Soubi visibly tensed at the sight.

Looking from Yuiko to Hitomi to Soubi to Seimei, shock hit me as I realized we were working on a limited time frame. The wounds on both Hitomi-sensei and Yuiko were still fresh. They were still alive, but even that would change if we didn't end this quickly.

Licking the blood from the blade, Seimei must have noticed my wandering eyes. "You shouldn't be distracted, little Ritsuka. They really don't have that much longer to live, I'm afraid. So I simply wonder how you'll do fighting against your older brother, the only person who could ever love you, and the man who raped your whore."

I didn't think that my eyes could get any wider as I screamed in horror, desperation, and with a thirst for revenge. The scene had become too surreal. As the moments ticked by, I knew that I was going to kill the person I was previously trying to avenge. I knew that I was going to kill my friend. Neither of them would be allowed to walk away from what they had done.

"Battle systems engage," Soubi called out, making the decision for me. The scene melted away to a darkened realm filled with stars and floating fiery candles. "Ritsuka, order me."

"Kill them. Make them dead," I said in a cold voice that didn't seem to come from me. "I am Loveless, one without love. My heart is without feeling."

Soubi's eyes danced with a dangerous fire. "Endless night, send your stars, scorch away the grass," Soubi chanted as flaming spikes shot towards Beloved.

"I feel nothing, it isn't there. The defense is empty space," Yayoi replied in a dead tone as the spiked faded into dust.

Laughing that vile sound, Seimei called out to me again. "Has Soubi gotten so weak having you as a sacrifice? What do you think this is, playing in the sand, little Ritsuka?"

Clenching my fists, I screamed at him. "Shut your mouth!"

"Ritsuka! Don't be distracted. He's trying to use psychological warfare," Soubi attempted to explain. His words barely registered.

"Do you know what the word we use for the real world is, little Ritsuka? I'll tell you. We call this word 'genjutsu.' Do you know its other meaning?"

"I don't care!"

"Oh, but do let me tell you, little brother. Genjutsu is the technique of illusion. The fighter shatters the illusion of reality while the sacrifice takes the blows as the world tries to correct itself. We're chained to reality, little Ritsuka, you and I. It's time to throw those bonds off and enter death," Seimei laughed.

"I said! Shut your mouth!" I didn't even think about what I was doing as I reached behind myself. Suddenly, I felt a brick flying through my hands, zooming past Yayoi's head to hit Seimei flat in the face. Sacrifices weren't supposed to be able to do that.

The sickening crack echoed through the nightmarish reality as Seimei slumped to his knees. Trembling, I looked at my shaking hands, realizing what I had just done. Soubi lifted my chin up to lock his eyes with mine.

"What do you wish for me to do, Ritsuka?" His cold blue eyes already knew my response.

"Eliminate Beloved. We are Loveless and have no room in our hearts for them," I said as I locked my lips around his own. They were bitter from the cigarette. I hoped Yuiko wasn't watching.

"Under delusion to not know the meaning of the ultimate spell called love, we take it from you. Loveless is the endless void that swallows all feeling, be drawn in and destroyed by the dark hole. Absolute gravity," Soubi concluded as darkness swallowed my brother and his brain washed minion, never to be seen again. "Absolute victory."

As the battlefield lifted, I rushed over to Yuiko.

"Ri… tsuka… kun," she said smiling. Yuiko reached out a hand as she stabilized herself, but then went slack and slowly fell to the ground. I caught and held her in my arms.

"No! Yuiko! Yuiko! Wake up! Open your eyes! Hey, this isn't funny, you know," I cried. "You're not allowed to leave me."

At some point, Soubi must have came over and pulled me off from her. I felt numb. Everything in my life was an empty pit of self-hate. If only I had been there to protect her. It was all my fault.

That point on was a blur for me. We were all lucky that Soubi knew how to treat wounds. Either Yayoi or Seimei had stabbed both Hitomi-sensei and Yuiko multiple times in the abdomen. They were also stabbed in between their thighs several times. Soubi had made the poor joke later on that it meant I couldn't enjoy Yuiko for a little while. Even though Yuiko had taken it in good humor, I was wishing for that brick again.

No one talked about if the babies were still okay. I don't think any of us were ready to consider that. For the moment, we just needed to get out of the city as fast as we could. Due to the severity of the wounds that Yuiko and Hitomi suffered, we waited a few days at Hitomi's until we left. Those few days seemed like an eternity.

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I had never taken a train outside of Tokyo before. On a few family vacations, I had seen the sea and the fields, before Seimei had faked his death, but we had always rented a car for that. Now Seimei really was dead, and neither Soubi nor I had the answers we wanted. It became our penance for being murderers.

"Ritsuka, Ritsuka, look! The forest!" Yuiko pointed enthusiastically out the window. It didn't feel like it had only been three days since the incident.

Pushing myself against the window, I carefully put my arm around Yuiko. Glancing back, I could still see the many buildings that made up the greater Tokyo area as well as the fields that spread out from there. As we traveled further and further north, we started seeing more and more trees.

"It feels like we're moving into an entirely different world," I remarked.

Hitomi-sensei gently touched Yuiko's back. "You shouldn't strain yourself, Yui-chan. We still have another several hours until we reach our destination. I should remind you both to be on your best behavior," she said in a playfully scolding voice.

Yuiko and I just looked at each other and laughed. Soubi, on the other hand, was looking nervous and tapping his fingers on the armrest.

"We should have gotten seats in the smoking section," he complained, staring intently at the floor. Hitomi gently smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand.

"If we're getting married, then you're not going to smoke anymore. I want you to act like a real adult and be a better role model for Ritsuka-kun and Yui-chan."

"I only take orders from one person," Soubi replied.

Hitomi sighed and looked frustrated. "I still don't understand the whole Septimal Moon or fighters and sacrifice nonsense that you dragged poor Ritsuka into, but even he ordered you to follow my requests."

I smiled. "That's right, Soubi, I want you to be the best fiancee for Hitomi-sensei that you can be." Soubi shook his head and touched his forehead, all with a grin on his face.

"Now if we can only work on you acting like that," Yuiko said as she crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks. Everyone except for Yuiko laughed at that.

For the first time in my entire life, everything was going to be okay. I had a real family now.


End file.
